


See Here Now

by Kypros



Series: Ex Vivo [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 05:30:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4007683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kypros/pseuds/Kypros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are words he cannot say, cannot bring himself to say, and in the end he knows this is self-sabotage. Kakashi leaves the ANBU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	See Here Now

The coffee is cold by the time he drinks the rest of it. He doesn't look over his shoulder to see the messy contents of his room – socks and day old shirts scattered amongst the shattered glass of an empty tumbler from the night before – and he doesn't attempt to walk away from the pool of sake that is hugging the soles of his feet. In time, he will clean it up; pack his bags and dry the floors and sweep the fragments of shattered glass into corners that cannot be seen. Windows will be opened and drawers emptied – his scent will leave, carried away by the cool winds of Konohagakure and buried beneath the leaves. In time, he will remove all signs of his presence. But that time is not now.

Instead, there are movements he must go through. A hangover must be cured; guilt must be absolved. So he goes through the steps, carrying them out in a mechanical manner. And in time, he thinks maybe, they will figure out why he is leaving – how stupid he is. What a mistake he has made. Perhaps not.  

Perhaps they will go on thinking nothing, not knowing what he has done and how incredibly ungrateful he is – how he took no remorse in drinking away any tendrils of friendship that had been left between himself and Tenzou. Crushing it and letting it break. Burning bridges. Dropping bombs.

All Kakashi knows is that he cannot say goodbye. A small voice in his head tells him that this it; this is what he wanted. Tenzou can’t know because Teznou is an idiot and he wouldn’t _understand_ even if Kakashi could coherently explain what he feels (which he can’t). 

That morning, breakfast is a sordid affair that is accompanied by tempered silence. Kakashi does not speak and Tenzou does not ask. He is oblivious as per usual, and if there is one thing that Kakashi is uncannily good at, it is being quiet. Salt and pepper pass hands; coffee is poured, and the strange and curious looks from Itachi that evenly traces the contours of his unusually stony face do nothing. Soon thereafter, Kakashi excuses himself to his room.

So Itachi knows.

Panic sets in and the voice in his head keeps going. He thinks of cynicism and self-loathing that is cold and soft like his sheets and the feel of trembling, nervous fingers that clutch hands in the dark of night and of the unsure feelings and everything he could have ever wanted and— _wait_. He can’t have this.

Night falls and with the familiar crunch of leaves pressing beneath his feet, he slips out the door of the housing complex. He walks swiftly and steadily, but contrary to Itachi who saw him go, he won’t be coming back.

In his hand is a fistful of paperwork. An honorable discharge from the ANBU tempered by a slowly deteriorating mental state that not even Kakashi will allow himself to acknowledge. Because somewhere in Konohagakure, is Tenzou. There is a relationship expired, left to the wayside like ashes from a slow burning cigarette the moment he left without saying goodbye. He can’t stand to watch it anymore. He can’t stand to see his teammate put himself in danger, time after time. He can’t stand to see his stupid smile after every mistake and injury and act like it is all nothing. He will leave—he is leaving. He will forget that brazen smile and every rib aching innervation of desperation whenever he sees his teammate’s blood birthed by a feeling he cannot bring himself to say out loud.

He knows. He knows with an acute awareness that is far beyond his age and sensibilities that every generation of shinobi is alike. That every child and mother, every father and brother, that every one of them carrying a smile held in place by the blade of the kunai is the same. That every one of them, while guided by a long line of shinobi values, was nothing but akin to a staircase. And while each generation was a step raised above unlike any other, they were all going in the same direction. And Tenzou was no different. Tenzou would end up like all the others. And that was something Kakashi could not stand to see, and so he will do as his father taught him to do; to shoulder his emotional burdens in bitter silence, to desire nothing, to eat his own animosity. He will not say goodbye. He will not give Tenzou the chance.

“ _Kakashi_.”

The voice is too familiar but not in the way he wants it to be, and he turns to see Itachi. A silence overtakes them, with edges jagged and uneven as Itachi stares, rigged body language inconsistent with his lessened gaze, lips curved ever so slightly into a saddening frown. Right here, right now, Kakashi does not understand a lot of things, too numerous to list, such as Itachi’s remorseful gaze, or the rapid hummingbird quick pumping of his heart at the sight of his former teammate. He does not understand the inundated sense of panic he appears to be experiencing, nor the burning in the tips of fingers and the blazing conflagration in the pit of his stomach, churning rapidly, resurrecting all the bastard words he had swallowed like they were sustenance. He has been caught. And when Itachi finally speaks again, it feels like an aeon has passed.

“You’ll break his heart, Kakashi.”

He thinks of the former bang-hit of bodies unsteadily pushing each other against bed frames and uncomfortable walls in lieu of something steady to brace themselves upon. He thinks of morning murmurs of ‘hello’ and stolen kisses in-between mission debriefings and secret smiles flashed at intervals while sipping sake. He thinks of the first time Tenzou was hurt on an assignment and the way his hands trembled as he sliced through the perpetrators’ neck, ripping him far, far away from his teammate. He thinks of an unconscious Tenzou slipping through his fingers and falling from the Iwatodai Bridge, only to be filled with teeming relief when Itachi catches him instead. He thinks and when he can think no longer, he can only shake his head and turn away.

“I know—,”

The words taste hollow in his mouth, but the emptiness of his response is incomparable to the pain is his stomach that is blooming, lancing like liquid metal through his veins, acute and sharp and ever so distressing. And as he goes to speak again (his lips, he think, still taste like Tenzou) he knows this. He knows he will. He knows this with every ounce of anger and illogical rage that is coursing through every shaking, thrumming fiber of his cowardly being.

“But he’ll break mine more.”

And then— _well_ , there it is. He is not there to witness the quiet implosion that happens the next morning as obliviousness turns into a saddening, discerning awareness and the loud lies told by Itachi who swears he never knew a thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I can't write happy things.


End file.
